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The case this week of a Pittsburgh-area restaurant planning to ban children under the age of 6 has produced widespread attention, even though the foodservice industry has seen cases like this arise with the periodic regularity of baby feedings.

Anyone can attest that lending to small business, especially restaurants, has been a virtual nightmare since the upheaval of the credit markets, over 16 months ago. Recently, an Atlanta area restaurant owner asked the sixty-four thousand dollar question, “when is it going to get better?” Shrugs abound. Well, sort-of. There’s still plenty of money available to lend to restaurant owners, it’s just that lenders and private equity groups are looking for any excuse to say “no.” Expectations are high on both ends of the spectrum, so much so, that bringing both the borrower and the lender together, even on the same planet, is often an enormous challenge.

“What we have found,” says Rebecca P. Watkins, CEM of National Restaurant Funding, “is that with ever-tightening guidelines on what is expected in order to get funding, small business owners still have a strong belief that the same rules that were in place in 2007 for borrowing exists today.”

However, those rules of very lax guidelines and “stated income” are no longer the norm. Even bridge loan funders insist on seeing a history of at least 3 years of financials. There must be 100% collateral in place for most loans, barring the SBA Express loans and Merchant Cash Advances. It is not a new way of lending, rather a systematic, less risky method of vetting a deal from all angles.

When loans are absolutely out of the question, a restaurant owner is limited on how he or she can infuse a business with working capital. There just isn’t a magic, fairy godmother lender out there that will swoop down from the heavens and bestow a credit-challenged, earning-declined restaurant with a working capital loan at prime-plus rate and no collateral. Most restaurants are under capitalized, at any given moment, by 2% to 20% and most launched their operations with a deficit in cash and struggle for years, if the location can stay open, to rebound.

While most small business owners have faced a nationwide trend drop in sales of 20% in the last year and a half, some restaurant owners have been able to increase cash flow by thinking smart and shedding unnecessary expenses. Sometimes scaling back isn’t enough to kick the business into high gear, though. That is where the injection of working capital, thought out intelligently, and factored in with a growth goal in mind, comes to the rescue of limping, often ailing businesses.

Funding sources, such as National Restaurant Funding provide professional analysis and expert advice to help restaurant owners get the funding they need. Watkins insists that businesses are still being funded, everyday, it just involves patience on the part of both the borrower and the lender to grasp the bigger picture.

NEW YORK (April 19, 2010) Restaurant companies releasing first-quarter results in the weeks ahead are expected to report improved sales trends, continued cost controls and a heightened sense that an industry recovery has begun, according to securities analysts.

While severe winter weather hurt sales trends at many chains in January and February, consumer spending increased in March, leaving many in the industry with a bit of spring fever. Companies including Brinker International, California Pizza Kitchen and Yum! Brands already have said first-quarter results were better than expected just months ago.

Analysts said they expect the majority of restaurant companies to beat earnings expectations for the first quarter and to increase corporate profit guidance for the remainder of 2010.

“We expect mostly positive restaurant earnings over the next two weeks,” Joe Buckley, securities analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said in a note to investors on Friday. “Strengthening sales trends and favorable costs – lower food [and] labor costs benefiting from low employee turnover, and lingering benefits from cost reduction or cost control programs – are a solid combination for earnings.”….

National Restaurant Funding, a brokerage-based company of Restaurant Funding Specialists, announces 2009 fourth-quarter formed SBA lending partnerships to help ease the burden of seeking credit for its clients. Through its alliances with nationwide lending partners, National Restaurant Funding is now capable of dipping into a lower threshold funding amount for its clients seeking to open a new location, expand their businesses, acquire functioning restaurants, lease or purchase equipment, build out, or for working capital.

Itself held hostage to a tight credit market, National Restaurant Funding has weathered the year-long credit crisis, focusing primarily on quick, attainable, short term funding products to help ease the cash flow of its clients. “We have had to piecemeal most of our deals this past year; drawing working capital from one source, equipment leasing from another, and often relying on hard money loans just to get the doors open for a client. To say that we have had to be creative on a client’s behalf would be an understatement,” says Chief Executive Member, Rebecca P. Watkins of National Restaurant Funding LLC. “However, this tough economic time has only served to strengthen our resolve to better serve our clients. We are beyond excited to see the lenders slowly opening their doors to our type of client; typically an individual owner with fewer than ten locations.”

With restaurants, as employers, having such a huge impact on the GDP, Watkins feels that restaurants make sense even in harsh economic times. “Merely opening one full-service restaurant in a neighborhood can provide upwards of 30 to 40 jobs. And while we may be spending less per household on dining out; we’re still in love with the idea of service, quality and a great meal at our favorite restaurant,” remarks Watkins.

National Restaurant Funding serves restaurateurs with a pragmatic approach to each deal. If it makes sense to lenders then a deal often gets fast-tracked through the system. While a top-notch credit score is often the key to a successful deal completion for a client, National Restaurant Funding consults from a knowledge-based approach of knowing its clients; having a background in the restaurant and hospitality industry, and often using that skill set to help close the deal with a funding partner on a client’s behalf. National Restaurant Funding has its corporate offices in Atlanta, GA and in Anderson, SC and serves restaurant owners nationwide.

Florida based Today’s Restaurant, the Fooodservice industry newspaper, with long held ties to Florida and Texas Restaurant professionals has announced its launch into Georgia’s rich restaurant market with a hardcopy and online edition coming in early March, 2010.

For more information regarding the much anticipated Georgia edition, contact the corporate offices of Today’s Restaurant at 561-620-8888. Ad space is being reserved now.